What is Done and Yet to Come
by waiting4morning
Summary: "The stars, the moon, They have all been blown out…" Post-ME3, Shepard finds reason to hope. Major spoilers for the end-game. femShep/Kaidan fluff.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Massive spoilers for the end of Mass Effect 3. Consider yourself warned.**

****For lilchickadee, who wanted something happy. Many thanks to arysani for the beta. Also thank you to rabbitzoro for the Shenko "book cover" art. Go to rabbitzoro on her DeviantArt account to see more of her fun ME fanart.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>What is Done and Yet to Come<strong>

_The stars, the moon,  
>They have all been blown out…<em>

Florence and the Machine, "Cosmic Love"

Shepard set her face in a mask of grim determination as her new arm flexed, lifting the five-pound weight ever-so-slowly in a bicep curl.

"You're doing great, Commander," the asari nurse said with a smile. "Do nine more and then you can take a break."

Shepard huffed out a breath. "Did I ever tell you I once lifted a steel beam off one of my crew?" She narrowed her eyes, scowling at the offending arm with its new, pink skin, still itchy from the nerve attachment surgery. "Now I can barely lift this thing."

The asari nodded sympathetically. "I know it's frustrating, but—"

"I'm thankful to be alive, I know," Shepard interrupted quietly. The asari said nothing, her purple-tinted eyes gazing off into the distance, perhaps thinking of the homeworld she might never see. Then again, asari lived for centuries. Shepard heard that some asari were planning on trying to reach Thessia via FTL speeds, a trip that would take years, decades… maybe centuries. But it was a chance. More than some folks had. Even Wrex had said that some krogan might hitch a ride to Tuchanka. With the nutrition in their humps, krogan were better suited than any species for a long trip in FTL.

Shepard glanced around at the makeshift physical therapy room. Like most rooms in the ruined building, it also doubled as space for patients not yet able to get out of bed. Through some twist of fate, it was also the building where the Alliance had gathered before the final push to the Conduit. If she walked over to the window and looked out over the rubble-strewn streets, she could see the very spot where she and Kaidan had last kissed…

"Commander!" A young private ran into the room, spotted Shepard and ran over with a salute. "Message for you on the QEC at HQ, ma'am."

Shepard dropped the weight and heaved herself to her feet, belatedly remembering to grab the cane the nurse handed to her. She didn't need it too much anymore – the pain was bearable – but her knee would give out every so often and the cane at least spared her the indignity of falling flat on her face. Her leg would require surgery to fix, but she had refused any procedure that wasn't otherwise going to save her life. Survivors and refugees were still pouring into the hospital; some with horrific injuries and with so few doctors on hand, Shepard was more than willing to walk around in a little pain if that meant a doctor could be saving another life.

The private waited patiently as she limped through and out of the hospital, then assisted her in getting into the shuttle. Alliance HQ wasn't far away, but the rubble clogging the streets meant very little was accessible except by air. Below, a Mako and an old Grizzly were hauling building-sized chunks of rubble from the area in an effort to clear the road. There were eventual plans to use shuttles to haul pieces of dead Reapers into space, but for now, they still lay like crumpled giant's toys, silent and somehow devoid of the presence they had when active.

Alliance HQ—or "Fort Anderson" as most everyone had taken to calling it—was abuzz with activity when they arrived. Shepard usually ached to join in—wanting something other than the tedious work of healing up, but she was a liability in search-and-rescue teams, and she didn't have the technical know-how for some of the other problems assaulting a post-Reaper existence. Still, Hackett invited her more often than she could come, if only so that her input—if she had any—could be heard. But this time she barely noticed the bustling soldiers, the huddled refugees, the lingering smell of sweat and unwashed bodies of various species.

The private she'd been following saluted again outside the communications room and let Shepard enter alone. She paused inside the door, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light, and saw Hackett standing on the receiver. Her eyes immediately fell on who he was communicating with and, as always, she couldn't stop the smile from forming: Kaidan.

Hackett looked over at her approach and nodded. "Major, there's someone here to see you, so I'll sign off. I appreciate the update. Keep up the good work. Tell your people that they are in our thoughts and prayers. Hackett out."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Kaidan said with a crisp salute. His image wavered and dissipated for blink of an eye, forming again, slightly fuzzy around the edges. Hackett brought over a bent but still usable folding chair for her and she nodded her thanks. Her legs were beginning to tremble from the exertion of the trip, and she was tired, not to mention slightly nauseated. She needed to eat something soon. Shepard waited until Hackett, left, drinking in the sight of him. Kaidan's hair was getting a little long and his facial hair more of a beard than stubble, but he was whole and healthy and _alive._

"Hey," he said in a soft voice, reaching out a ghostly hand.

"Hey," she said in return, reaching out hers as well. Her fingers met his blue holographic ones with no discernible feeling, but it was better than nothing. Even the QEC was a recent victory over what had been for weeks an audio connection. The _Normandy_, stranded on a planet with no visible means of communication in sight, had had to make substantial repairs before they were able to fix the QEC to contact Earth. And even then, it had been another few weeks before the holographic part of it worked again. Kaidan had said on their last talk that getting EDI back online had helped with the process… but it was still touch and go. Power was apt to go out as systems with fried wiring died and if there weren't spare parts on the ship, they had to make do without. Even now, they had limited battery life. They charged them up with a primitive solar array that Traynor had found stuffed in a storage crate in the shuttle bay, saving the Normandy's power cells for life support, medical, and food prep.

"How's therapy going?" Kaidan asked.

Shepard showed him her regen-arm, pointing at the vanishing scar from her surgery. "Not too bad. Tell James that by the time you guys get back, I might be ready to lift a datapad again."

He chuckled warmly. "I will. They send their greetings, by the way. Garrus says the bottles are revolting but he's got it taken care of, whatever that means."

Shepard laughed. "How's Javik?"

"Improving." Kaidan looked away a moment toward something out of the QEC's view. "It was better once he regained consciousness. Dr. Chakwas wasn't sure how to treat a Prothean with… those kind of injuries. First time I've ever seen her stumped."

"Glad to hear it," she said, relief filling her like a breath of fresh air. Some days were bad days and others, like today, she stored up hope and good news to ration out on the days when there was nothing good to share.

Kaidan's holo fuzzed again. "Shepard, I was just telling Hackett that we may have found a colony on this planet. We're not sure yet. We picked up a signal the other day; faint, but there. If they've been having the same communication problems that we are, it's probable that it's only now they're getting things back online too. We're going to send a team out tomorrow and try to triangulate the signal."

Shepard sucked in a breath. "Does that mean you know where you are and..." _how soon you'll be coming home?_ She couldn't say it; couldn't bear to hear an answer in the negative.

"We think we might be on one of Zion's moons. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two that are habitable."

Shepard wracked her brain. "Wait, Zion? In the Exodus Cluster?"

Kaidan nodded, smiling. "We're right next door, Shepard. Only a few hundred light-years away."

Shepard had to remind herself to breathe.

Kaidan searched her face. "I don't want to give false hope, but if we find this colony, and if they have the parts we need…"

Shepard found her voice, hoarse with emotion. "You could be home within a year."

They were both silent for a moment.

"I want to hold you so badly my arms actually hurt," he said with a small smile. "We may be stranded, but we've survived here and this world is… untouched by the Reapers. I can't imagine what it's like being there on Earth with so much devastation and death."

There was death in this post-Reaper world… but there was also life. Shepard swallowed, fingers bunching on the fabric that had clumped over her belly. "Kaidan, I wanted to wait until I was sure to tell you, but then you had that malfunction and then we did and—"

"Shepard, what is it?" His voice held a hint of panic, the holograph wavering.

She took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant."

Kaidan's figure fizzled out completely.

"Kaidan?" Shepard leaned forward in her chair in alarm, ready to press any of the buttons on the console, but he flickered back to life.

"You… what?" Kaidan's hair looked like it was standing on end.

"We're going to have a baby," she said softly, reaching out her hand again.

Kaidan reached out to her hand, emotion visible on his face. After some moments, he swallowed, throat bobbing. "Shepard, the battery on this thing is about to go, but I love you. I love you _so much_. I'll be home as soon as I can. Don't have the baby without me."

Shepard laughed through the tears forming in her eyes. "I'll do what I can. I love you."

_I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map,  
>And knew that somehow, I could find my way back.<em>


	2. Chapter 2

**What is Done and Yet to Come**

**Part II**

* * *

><p>Her hair grew fast now. While on active duty, Shepard never had a problem keeping her hair short, just to the edge of her jaw. Long enough to tuck behind her ears; short enough that wearing a helmet was never a problem. But now it swept the tops of her shoulders in a length she hadn't seen since she was a little girl getting scraped knees on the plains of Mindoir.<p>

She blamed the pregnancy hormones. Pregnancy got a lot of the blame these days.

"Oof," she groaned, rolling over to her other side. But the pressure didn't go away. "Get off my kidney, squirt," she grumbled at her swollen belly. Predictably, the baby didn't budge; even seemed to do a little tap dance. She gasped in mingled pain and amusement; this kid was _definitely_ Kaidan's. Sliding out of bed, one hand pressed to her belly, she paced for a bit, hoping the change in position would shift things around.

Her stomach rumbled.

"Fine," she sighed in defeat. "You win. I'm up. I hope you're happy." She glanced back at the bed as she pulled on a sweatshirt over her pajamas. It wasn't as if she was getting a lot of sleep anyway. Even when the baby was quiet, for the first time since she could remember, she felt… lost in bed.

It was strange; when Kaidan had regularly begun sleeping in her quarters, they had gentle squabbles about "space" requirements. Kaidan didn't need space; he liked being close to her, liked to cuddle, hold her as they slept. Shepard, on the other hand, needed her space. She liked to cuddle, but when it was time to sleep, she wanted to sleep with no extra arms or legs encumbering her. Kaidan claimed that she _sprawled_ across the bed with such inexorable forward movement, he had to hold onto her or risk falling off. She would counter back that she wasn't used to sharing a bed with anyone, so of course she would try to maximize the space she had.

"_You'd better get used to it, Shepard," he'd said, threading his hand through her hair. "Because I'm not going anywhere. This time, I don't have to obey your orders to abandon ship. And I never will again."_

Shepard abruptly turned from the empty bed and navigated through the dark toward the mess.

The night guard outside the barracks nodded as she passed. It wasn't the first, nor would it be the last time that Shepard wandered the building when everyone else was still asleep. The sighs and snores of dozens of other soldiers filled the larger, common sleeping area as she carefully walked through. This building was a recent discovery of about two months ago; an office building that had several floors underground and they'd all survived remarkably intact. Even the bathrooms still had running water: a fact Shepard was extremely grateful for now that the baby seemed to ensure that she didn't go two hours without needing to seek out a toilet. It was humbling. Commander Shepard, savior of the Citadel, defeater of the Reapers… was a slave to the pressure of a tiny foot or elbow on her bladder.

After she finished in the bathroom, the pressure now a little less painful, she wandered into the mess, closing the door so she could switch on the light without disturbing everyone else. That was another nice thing about this underground building: electricity. In a utility closet, the first excavators had discovered several generators. Most they sent to Alliance HQ, the hospital, and the other building used to house refugees, but one they kept for what was affectionately being called the "Bunker," where Alliance personnel slept.

The night guard's pot of coffee still steamed quietly, so Shepard poured herself half a cup of coffee, just enough to get awake, and grabbed a couple of protein bars from the cabinet. She sank down into the bench next to one of the tables, ripping open one of the packages and taking a large bite. The baby moved, pain easing. She rubbed her belly appreciatively.

"There now, that wasn't so hard."

She activated her omni-tool, scrolling through some of the latest reports, frowning at a couple. Punching in the communicator, she waited for a moment as it connected, hearing a growling snort come from the other end.

"Shepard, you'd better have a good reason for waking me at an hour when even the threshers don't stir."

"Just checking in, Wrex," she said, sipping her coffee to wash down the last bite of the first protein bar. "Eclipse still giving you trouble? Cause I think we can—"

The krogan grumbled something.

Shepard frowned. "What was that?"

"I said, you're brooding. Leave me alone, Shepard. I know how to handle a gang of mercs. I've been doing it pretty well the past few months or have you forgotten?"

Shepard glared at the omni-tool. "I am not brooding!"

"You're pregnant. Pregnant females brood."

"Say that one more time and I'll come up to that hunk of junk you call a ship and kick your ass!"

Wrex chuckled. "And you probably could too, as big as you're getting." He spoke over her angry splutters. "Go back to bed and don't call me this early again." The connection blinked out.

"I'm not that big," she grumbled. But she glanced down, noticing that all the crumbs from her protein bar had landed on the shelf of her swollen breasts or stomach and not the table. Sniffing, she ripped into her second bar, and queued up another call.

"Hey, Shepard," Tali's voice chirped.

"Morning, Tali. Glad you're up." Shepard smiled. "I just talked to Wrex and he really needs his beauty sleep apparently."

Tali giggled. "It's mid-afternoon here. I just finished a meeting with the Admirals and the turian Primarch."

"Oh? How'd it go?"

"Not as bad as it could have. Our liveships are still producing enough food to feed both the quarian and the turian population. More of the turians, however, would like to return planetside on a semi-permanent basis. They've been talking with the Alliance. They want to be busy; clear rubble, help refugees, that sort of thing. They want to know if they can get a dextro-based food processor from one of our liveships to take to Earth."

"Let me guess: the Admirals are a bit nervous about it?"

"Yes," Tali sighed. "It's understandable. No one wants to risk running out of things to eat, but the Flotilla has made its own food for centuries. We know better than anyone what we can spare and what we can't. I'm getting ready to run some numbers now. When I come back with the proof that we can spare a processor, I'm sure the Admirals will be fine with the idea."

"We're keeping an eye out here, too," Shepard reminded her. "You never know if a turian café might be uncovered around here and the equipment can be salvaged."

"Right. I think the turians hope that might happen actually. We may eat the same things, but they have to be getting sick of quarian cuisine."

The line went silent for a moment. Shepard sipped the last of her coffee.

"Shepard?" Tali's voice came hesitantly over the omni-tool. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Keep from... succumbing to utter misery because he's there and you're here."

Shepard fell silent, remembering when she had accidentally walked in on Garrus and Tali sharing an intimate moment. "You take it one day at a time," she said in a soft voice. "Some days are better than others. On the good days you know you'll see him again and it gives you strength to go on. On the bad days you call up a friend, even if it's only to hear the sound of another person's voice."

Tali's chuckle sounded a little watery. "I guess you've had a lot of bad days then."

Shepard winced as her belly tightened; she rubbed her hand across it absently. "Yeah. There's just… so much he can't be here for, Tali, and it's…" She blew out a breath. "It's not fun." The tightening increased, and she sucked in a breath as pain accompanied the feeling.

"Shepard? What's wrong?"

Shepard couldn't reply for a moment, but the pain soon faded as if it had never happened. "N-nothing. Just a… cramp."

"Shepard, have you seen a doctor lately?"

"Yes," she replied defensively. "My knee still needs physical therapy and my arm too."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Shepard fiddled with the empty protein bar wrapper. "I… can't, Tali." She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. "I can't do this without him. I don't want to go in there alone and have them poke and prod and speak about our baby as if he wasn't part of it—"

"Then I'll come down there, and I'll go with you," Tali interrupted.

"No," Shepard countered. "You're busy; you have too much to do, especially as the ambassador to the turians. Everyone's anxious: your people; theirs. You can't just leave that situation hanging."

"Shepard, this is important."

"I know." She rubbed a hand over her face, through her hair. "I'm being idiotic. Chakwas would ream me a new one if she saw me." She paused. "I'll think about it."

"I'm going to bug you about this until you actually do something."

Wanting to change the topic, Shepard cleared her throat. "Admiral Hackett's promised to let me know when the _Normandy_ drops out of FTL speed and gives us an update. I'll let you know when it happens."

"Thank you, Shepard. That means a lot. Listen, I need to go, but hang in there. Keelah se'lai."

"Keelah se'lai," Shepard echoed.

The call ended and the silence and solitude pressed in around her again. She needed to be busy; busy meant her mind couldn't trace the endless paths of "what ifs" and "maybes." Speed of any kind was nearly impossible in her state, but she managed to shower, pull her hair back into a serviceable bun, and get dressed all before the changing of the night shift into the morning shift.

A rumbling elevator took her to the surface and she stepped out onto the street, shivering as her breath clouded the air in front of her. Seven months had done much to clear away the worst of the rubble around Fort Anderson, the hospital, and refugee camp. Locals were now calling it "Haven." Even the fledgling European Union was based here, out of another building with underground offices about a block away. People could now walk sidewalks and streets, though most still needed repair to make them passable for ground vehicles other than Makos. Then again, there wasn't any traffic except for military vehicles these days anyway.

Cold as it was, Shepard was glad to be out of the stale underground Bunker. She checked the time on her omni-tool and frowned. It was still a bit early to talk to Hackett; the poor man got little enough sleep as it was. Hugging her sweater around her, Shepard instead walked toward the park. The "park" was a cleared space of ground that was probably someone's garden before the war. But once the rubble had been cleared away, some grass had started to grow. It wasn't long before people began flocking there just to see a glimpse of hope and soon benches made from pieces of buildings sprang up. When it was warmer, the sounds of children's laughter could be heard amid impromptu games of tag and hide and seek.

Shepard went there a lot these days. As her mobility decreased, it became a convenient rest stop and it gave her hope to see smiles on people's faces. Her usual perch already was already occupied. Shepard paused then sat down beside her.

"Good morning," Shepard said. "You're up early."

The older woman yawned into the back of her hand, smiling. "I could say the same." Her eyes darted down to Shepard's belly. "Little mite wouldn't let you sleep?"

"Nope." She rubbed her hand over her stomach. It was tightening again. "I think he revels in making me get up just as soon as I'm comfortable."

The woman smiled. "'He'?"

Shepard nodded. "I think so? I mean, I can't keep calling him an 'it' and a boy feels right. A son…" She drifted off, imagining a little boy with Kaidan's thick dark hair. Her throat tightened unexpectedly and she swallowed. _Stupid pregnancy emotions._ Trying to distract herself, she looked again at her companion. She'd met the woman, a refugee, a few weeks ago on this very bench. Somehow, they'd struck up a conversation and they'd met nearly every day since. She was older than Shepard by at least twenty years, though there was a natural grace to her movements unfettered by age, and only a little bit of gray at the temples of her curly black hair.

It was… strange, but oddly refreshing to talk about everyday nothings with the woman who'd only called herself Elizabeth. Shepard hadn't identified herself and the woman hadn't asked.

"Any news about your husband or son?" Shepard asked.

Elizabeth looked down at her hands cradled in her lap. "No. Still MIA, though technically they won't even admit that to me. I know they don't have an accurate… body count, but this awful not knowing…" Her voice roughened and she turned her head away. Shepard let her compose herself. Elizabeth had come to Haven since it was the location for Alliance HQ, looking for her husband and son, both of whom had gone missing. Shepard knew it was likely that they would never be found—both of them buried under rubble or among the countless dead drifting somewhere in the space above Earth. But she said nothing. Sometimes hope was all a person had to keep going.

"You look troubled." Elizabeth had recovered and looked back at Shepard.

Shepard nodded. "I… My family was killed when I was a teenager. With the wisdom of years of therapy and adulthood, I am able to see that I couldn't have done anything to save them. But for a large portion of my life, my only goal was to prove that I wasn't that weak little girl anymore. I needed to be strong enough to prove to the people who'd killed my family and destroyed my home that I wouldn't be scared the next time; that I would beat them."

She looked up at the park seeing a distant couple on another bench, not moving simply leaned in toward each other, resting on the other. "I didn't realize that I was pushing everything and everyone away. Kaidan…" She swallowed hard and Elizabeth stirred, but Shepard didn't look at her, continuing, "Kaidan made me realize that I am only as strong as the people around me—that I need people, not just as tools to complete an objective, but as friends, family. I need him and he needs me and that makes neither of us weak." She winced as pain rippled across her belly but it was gone in a blink. "I've never met an enemy I couldn't bash my way through, but I… I don't think I can do this… parenting thing without him, Elizabeth, and that scares the hell out of me."

"Commander?" An private hesitantly approached the bench, saluting. "Admiral Hackett would like to speak with you."

Shepard heaved herself to her feet. "Alright. Thank you, Private Granger. I'll walk with you." She turned back to say goodbye to Elizabeth and found the woman staring at her in open-mouthed astonishment.

"You're… you're Commander Shepard." It wasn't a question.

Shepard nodded. "Sorry for not introducing myself. But it was nice to talk to you." She turned and followed the private out of the park.

#

Other Alliance soldiers up early nodded as they got closer to Fort Anderson, some saluting. Her lips curved in a smile. She had never been more out of uniform in her life—the Alliance didn't have maternity wear—yet that boy back there with his overbite and hero-worship in his gaze was saluting so hard his spine might have cracked in two. The private escorting her was also straight-backed. Likely she'd brag to her buddies later about her escort of Commander Shepard to Admiral Hackett.

"_Looks like you've got a fan," said Lieutenant Alenko, grinning as the blond-haired man literally jumped up and down, waving with embarrassing enthusiasm. Shepard gave Alenko a flat stare that had sent men of higher rank than his fleeing for the hills, but he simply smiled wider. "Maybe you should practice your autograph, ma'am, because I think he's going to ask for it." Shepard's flat stare turned into an appraised glance. So the quiet Lieutenant had a sense of humor underneath his handsome exterior—she clamped down on that thought, angry at herself. Regs, Shepard! But his smile remained with her the rest of the day._

Her stomach tightened again, but this time she had a hard time separating the pain of the contraction from the pain of the memory. She leaned against a disconnected wall of a building, breathing heavily until the spasm passed.

"Ma'am?" Private Granger stepped closer. "Are you okay?"

"F-fine," she grunted. The pain faded as before, but then almost immediately came back, worse than before. Shepard hissed out a breath.

"I… I'm going to go get a doctor," Granger stuttered, eyes wide, and raced away before Shepard could gather a breath to order her back. She soon returned leading a woman in BDUs that Shepard recognized from her time in the hospital.

"Commander," the woman said, coming over to put a hand on her shoulder in concern. "What seems to be the problem?"

Shepard could see that putting her off wouldn't get her anywhere, and blew out a breath in frustration. "I've been having… pains." She rubbed her hand across her belly; the last pain had receded. Already it seemed like it had never happened.

"How far along are you?"

"Seven months. Give or take a week or two." Shepard cleared her throat. "There were, um, multiple opportunities for conception."

A flicker of amusement crossed over the medic's face. "Are these pains frequent? Rhythmic?"

"Well they're happening more often than I would like," Shepard admitted. Fear clawed a ragged path up her throat. "This can't be happening," she said, releasing a shuddering breath. "It's too early. Kaidan's not back yet and—"

The medic clamped down on Shepard's shoulder, squeezing gently. "Get it together, soldier," she ordered in a firm voice. "I'm going to take you to the hospital because I don't have a maternity kit on my omni-tool, but Dr. Zhang does. To be safe, we need to give you a full workup. Got it?"

Shepard nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The firm voice of authority giving orders calmed her somewhat, recalling her back to her days before her own command. The baby stirred inside her. _Just hold on,_ she told him silently.

"Come on, Commander. Let me know if you need to rest as we walk."

She swallowed hard and followed the other woman.

#

"No," Shepard said, fingers twitching toward her concealed sidearm. "I feel fine. I'm not going to let you… stab my baby with a needle or do any of this other crap."

Dr. Zhang looked a mixture of frustrated and wary. She'd likely dealt with many frightened pregnant women before, but not many of them were armed with both guns and biotics. "Commander, this is a routine procedure. It's necessary at this stage to check the embryonic fluid. It will help us determine if anything is wrong with the fetus—"

Shepard's biotics flared, making the baby swirl around inside her. "This is my baby!"

Dr. Zhang froze, fear flickering across her face.

"Commander Shepard, it's okay." A new voice entered the room. Shepard dragged her eyes away from the doctor and saw, to her surprise, Elizabeth standing in the doorway to the room.

"Elizabeth?" Shepard blinked in confusion.

The older woman stepped into the room, gently pulling the pistol from Shepard's hand. She hadn't even realized she'd taken it out. Elizabeth took Shepard's hands in her own and squeezed gently, static electricity crackling as they touched.

"It's going to be okay," she repeated, holding Shepard's gaze with her own. Her eyes were a caramel brown, dark and serious under stern black eyebrows. "They're not going to hurt you or the baby. I promise. If these pains you've been having are pre-term labor, ignoring it won't make it go away, but if we find out what it is now, we have the ability to fix it before it becomes dangerous to the baby. Right doctor?"

Dr. Zhang nodded. "As I was trying to explain a moment ago…" She wiped the back of her wrist over her forehead.

Shepard swallowed hard against the pain knifing up her throat, her biotic corona fading. "But I can't… I can't do this alone, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth tugged her forward into a hug, gentle yet firm: a mother's hug. "You won't be." She pulled back to look Shepard in the face again, this time smiling through tears. "I'm Kaidan's mother."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note: So this one got away from me and spawned several mutant versions of itself before I finally wrestled it into submission. Some stories - like the first chapter - spring into existence fully formed. Others have to be carved into existence, like Michaelangelo and his block of marble. <strong>

**I think there's one more story yet to come. Stay tuned.  
><strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**What is Done and Yet to Come**

**Part 3**

* * *

><p><em>Shepard took a deep breath as the decon cycle ended, and took her place a step behind Captain Anderson as they entered the <em>Normandy_ SR-1. Anderson had forwarded pictures of the crew to her personal datapad earlier that week, urging her to go over the information so she'd know who she was working with for the duration of the shakedown cruise. _

_Immediately through the airlock, the crew—lined up from the cockpit to what looked like the CIC—stiffened into salutes. Anderson stopped in front of a balding older man that Shepard recognized. _

_"Commander, this is—"_

_"Navigator Charles Pressly," Shepard said with a smile. "A pleasure."_

_The older man blinked in surprise at her knowing him by name and face already. "Welcome aboard, ma'am."_

_Anderson chuckled. "Should I let you give the introductions, Shepard? Seems like you know the crew already."_

_Shepard grinned. "I'll do fifty push-ups for every one I get wrong, sir."_

_"Deal."_

_They walked down the line of straight-backed Alliance soldiers—with the exception of Flight Lieutenant Moreau who stayed hunched on his crutches before being permitted to sit back in his pilot's chair—Shepard greeting each by name. _

_"Doctor Chakwas."_

_"Commander. Welcome."_

_"Engineer Adams."_

_"Ma'am."_

_She paused. The next face stared at her with calm expectation. It was a face she'd come back to over and over again: the marine detail commander, Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. She'd be working closely with him. She offered her hand and they both jumped as static electricity sparked between them._

_"Sorry—" They both said at the same time. Lieutenant Alenko hid a smile with a polite cough. "Excuse me, ma'am. I'm a biotic. We, uh, need to be grounded before shaking hands. I should have known better." _

_Shepard smiled. "Actually, Lieutenant, I don't know if we can prove who the instigator was here." She flared her biotics, the aura crackling faintly, then let the field dissipate. She didn't normally overly display her abilities except on the battlefield, but Anderson had suggested she find an opportunity to display them to the crew. He said it would do them good to get used to a biotic being in charge. No reason to coddle them._

_Lieutenant Alenko's caramel brown eyes widened. She smiled again and moved down the line._

Shepard opened her eyes, expecting the cool lighting of the _Normandy_ and seeing only the dim light of one of the office spaces in Ford Anderson. Grimacing, she stood, hands resting on her swollen belly. She'd just closed her eyes to rest them and had fallen asleep it seemed.

She dreamed about Kaidan lot these days. Sometimes they were memory dreams, like that one. Other times, the dreams seemed to be in the present, as if he were there with her and he'd smile and her chest would ache at the look in his eyes and they'd talk or simply lay together, his arms holding her close.

_Thirty-seven weeks_. Her life seemed to live by numbers these days. Thirty-seven was the most important. Thirty-seven weeks since the Reapers were destroyed. Thirty-seven weeks of surviving in a world blown back technology wise at least two-hundred years, of proving that they _could _survive. Thirty-seven weeks since she'd discovered… The baby moved. It was a different kind of movement than two months ago, less fluttery and more like someone shifting around in a too-tight shirt. There were also times now when the baby didn't move. _That_ had scared her breathless until Elizabeth assured her that this far along, the baby was actually sleeping at times, behaving more like a newborn.

Names, too, were running the gambit through her mind. Initially, Shepard had told herself that she and Kaidan would name the baby together, but if she was honest with herself, she was already set on David, after Anderson. The late Admiral was as different from her actual father as could be, but he'd been a significant part of her life: from her time in the Ns where he was an idol to emulate to the last time she spoke with him, when he'd told her how proud he was of her and what a good mother she would be.

Shepard rubbed her belly. _I hope you're right, Anderson._

She left the office where she'd been going over some reports as the noise of people entering the room outside began to filter in. Excavators, all of them dusty and tired looking, shuffled into the common room outside of the offices. Elizabeth and a few of the other refugees immediately took the boxes and began sorting. Anything medical related, like medicine or bandages, went into the hospital box where a medic was doing his part to sort through the wreckage too. Foodstuffs went in another, salvageable tech in another, and so on.

Thirty-seven weeks in Haven. Shepard scratched at her belly—the skin itched a lot now. Dr. Zhang had said it was because the skin was stretching so quickly. At least the contractions hadn't gotten worse—what had the doctor called them? Braxton-Hicks contractions. "False alarms." They had gone away for awhile, but now they were back. Still, now that she knew what they were, she didn't worry. Now she just had to worry about other things… like what to wear if she got any bigger.

Excavators had to go a little further in their radius of search now—an oddly comforting thought. It meant that progress was being made. In any case, salvage was important. From canned foodstuffs to clothes to batteries; they were always running low on everything. Not dangerously low, but low enough that the number of excavator teams kept growing and were kept busy around the clock, digging through the rubble of houses and stores. Shepard had her own reasons for waiting for the teams to return. She heaved herself to her feet and lumbered over to the nearest, a Chief Petty Officer Richards, if she recalled correctly. He looked up as she approached and shook his head before she could even ask.

"Not a lot of baby stuff, ma'am. Some jars of baby food that survived, but not many."

Shepard frowned. "No diapers, no… cribs or… other baby things? Nothing? Not even maternity clothes?" She plucked restlessly at the ugly jumper thing that she'd been forced to wear for awhile now. She'd outgrown her last pair of pants. The only thing she had left of her old clothes was her N7 hoodie. Steve had found it wedged between the bench seats and the wall in the shuttle, which had recently been recovered in the wreckage of London. She hugged it around herself now.

"What you see is what you get, ma'am," returned the Chief with a shrug.

Shepard felt her anger start to boil, and she leaned close to the dirt-streaked man. "Listen here, Chief. The _Normandy_ will be returning to Earth any day now and we need to be ready. _I_ need to be ready. If we don't find the things we need—"

"Commander Shepard, a word if you please."

Shepard looked up, as did the rest of the Alliance soldiers, giving salutes around the room as Admiral Hackett stepped through the door. Shepard cast a look back at the Chief as she walked toward Hackett; he looked relieved. Hackett gestured her through the door and she followed. They walked through the dimly lit corridors of the underground building.

"Seems like you're here with the excavators every day, Shepard. You've done a good job organizing them, but," he said, raising an eyebrow, "you've been working too hard." He held up a hand to forestall the protest he saw on her face. "Even heroes—especially pregnant heroes ready to give birth," he added dryly, "need to take breaks. I'm removing you from active duty. Consider yourself on maternity leave."

"I'm fit for duty, _sir,_" she bit out, ignoring the fact that she had pee _again_ and her back was starting to hurt. "Let me have something to do."

Hackett's gaze softened a fraction. "Shepard, you aren't going to be doing anyone any favors by working yourself to the bone. I've been telling you that for the past eight months and it hasn't worked, so you've left me with little option but to order you to relax. If that means tying to you to a chair and a desk job, so be it. The press will have a field day if something happens to you."

"I need something to keep myself occupied, Admiral." She took a deep breath. "I can't just sit here and do nothing while the _Normandy_ is in transit. People need help."

They reached the mess and went inside. Hackett poured himself a cup of coffee, offering the pot to Shepard. She shook her head, instead reaching for a nutrient bar in the cabinet to munch on.

Hackett eyed her. "You're not going back on duty." She started to protest and he raised a hand. "That's an order, Commander."

Shepard bit into her bar, fighting a ridiculous urge to pout. Hackett was, perhaps, the only person in the Alliance who wasn't intimidated by her and could call rank on her without batting an eye. It was one of the things she appreciated about him usually, but right now it made her want to shoot something.

"There's another reason I wanted to speak to you, Shepard." Hackett said after a pause. "Maybe you should sit down."

The bite she'd just eaten turned to sawdust in her mouth. The baby stretched inside her and she pressed a hand against the push protectively.

"What is it?" she asked, staying on her feet.

"The _Normandy_ hasn't reported in. Major Alenko had planned to at least make one scheduled stop out of FTL to update us on their progress, but we've been waiting for weeks and there's been no word. I think you should prepare yourself."

Shepard heard Hackett the first time, but he must have thought her silence stood for deafness because he repeated himself.

Somehow, she managed a "thank you, sir" past her numb lips, turned and left the room.

Elizabeth found her outside staring at a brick wall and when she asked what was wrong, it was if the thin thread of hope that had kept Shepard going the past thirty-seven weeks snapped. When she came to, Elizabeth's arms had engulfed her in the kind of hug that only mothers can give and both their faces were wet with tears.

#

A week later, Shepard ignored the tentative knocks on the door to her room, staying curled up in bed. There weren't many individual rooms available, but being pregnant and a hero had its perks. Her stomach cramped with hunger but she didn't move, couldn't move. It was as if a weight the size of a krogan had settled onto her chest, making it hard to breathe.

She knew what this was. When she was sixteen her family had been murdered by slavers and only therapy, a regimen of antidepressants, and the care of her aunt and uncle had brought her out of a depression so deep she couldn't see a way out. To be staring in the face of that pit again was draining and… tempting. It would be so easy to just give in, to let the bleakness when she thought about Kaidan adrift in space take over….

A tiny movement inside her made her open her eyes, and she let out a shuddering breath. No. She couldn't give in. She had to fight. Slowly, she raised herself up to a sitting position, sucking in lungfuls of air in an effort to dispel the weight in her chest.

"Andie?" Elizabeth's voice came from outside the door. "Are you okay? Your friend Tali'Zorah said you haven't been answering calls."

Shepard glanced at her omni-tool, only then noticing that she had a dozen incoming calls, none of which she'd noticed.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Shepard finally managed to reply, her voice hoarse.

The door slid open. Elizabeth was carrying a tray of food, wearing a concerned expression.

"You haven't been out," she commented.

"Only to use the head," Shepard said, shrugging.

Elizabeth sat the tray down on the bedside table and sat next to her on the bed.

"Andie, you have to fight this. I miss him too, but your baby needs you." The older woman gripped Shepard's hands. "I need you . You're as good as family to me, and I won't lose you too, you hear me?"

Shepard nodded, feeling her throat constrict. "I'm trying," she whispered. To prove it, she ate everything on the tray, though she was uncomfortably full by the end of it.

As she ate, Elizabeth proposed an idea.

"I think we could both use a change of scenery. My husband's family owns an orchard and vineyard in Okanagan, British Columbia. It would just be a quick visit, before the baby arrives. I was there before I came to London and there should be some baby things in storage. My mother-in-law always kept a few mementoes and a stash of baby things should family visit and need clothes or diapers that they didn't bring themselves."

"That would be useful," Shepard admitted, taking another bite of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"If there's anything left of it, it should be beautiful this time of year," Elizabeth said. "All the trees will be in bloom. We used to go there a lot when Kaidan was younger." Her voice grew wistful. "He used to love climbing the trees…"

Shepard agreed. She didn't think she could stand the sight of the familiar rubble fields of London any longer. Steve volunteered to fly them, plus a few other Alliance officers that needed a drop off in Vancouver.

"Hey, Shepard," Steve said, looking up as she approached the shuttle the day of the departure. She managed to nod in greeting, but couldn't quite muster the strength to speak. Steve must have seen the look on her face because he put down his datapad and came over and put his arms around her. She closed her eyes. _It's almost the same_, a distant part of her thought, _the strength of his arms, the rasp of stubble against my cheek…_

"Shepard, you with me?"

She nodded, but he held her by the shoulders, his vivid blue eyes staring her down. "Don't make him an anchor, Shepard," he said a low voice. He put his hand over hers, which was resting on her belly, and squeezed gently. "Uncle Steve plans to teach little David how to be a pilot. Can't let his jarhead heritage ruin him early on."

Shepard managed a shaky smile that felt more like a grimace, but Steve nodded and squeezed her shoulder again.

"Come on. Let's get you and Mrs. Alenko comfortable. It'll be a long trip."

It was a long trip, made longer by the awkward silence the Alliance officers insisted on keeping for part of it. The next part of the trip they seemed to reverse their opinion and tried to fill the silence with as much conversation as possible. Elizabeth made something of an effort to reply to their overly polite inquires, but Shepard did not.

Steve turned on the vid screens on the inside of the cabin so they could at least see some of the passing scenery. They flew over ruined cities and downed Reapers, but they also saw that not everything was destroyed. They saw a few remote towns that looked untouched, pristine. One even still had a church steeple standing tall and gleaming white. Shepard watched it as they passed, her eyes haunted.

"What more do you want of me?" she murmured. Elizabeth looked at her but didn't say anything.

"Er, did you say something Commander?" asked one of the officers.

Shepard closed her eyes and didn't reply.

_#_

_Shepard walked around the colonial common house on Chasca as Kaidan stood at a console, omni-tool aglow, and Wrex poked through the scattered crates. She stepped closer to the body of a husk they'd downed earlier in the firefight, mouth twisting in distaste. There'd been some debate among the ground crew on what to do with the bodies of husks—after all, they _had_ once been human: someone's friend or parent, a son, daughter, lover. It seemed disrespectful to the memory of what they had been to leave them laying there, but neither could they spare the time to bury them. Shepard made the decision after the second time they encountered husks to drag the bodies into a pile and burn them._

_She turned away from the husk, heading to the back room. It opened at her approach revealing what must have been a lounge for the colony common house: a meager bar, a few chairs, a vid screen showing only static now, and… Shepard ran her hands over the haptic piano interface, the keys singing their tunes in response to the chips implanted in her fingertips. She hesitated, then set her fingers down in a minor chord that sounded through the speakers, a brief mournful note for those that had passed here._

_"You play the piano?" Kaidan's voice at the door brought her up short. "Ma'am," he added belatedly._

_Shepard hesitated. "I used to," she admitted, unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice. "My mother paid for the lessons when I was a kid. I was… pretty good by the time I was a teenager. Won a few local contests."_

_"Really? That's impressive for a kid."_

_Shepard shrugged, smiling. "On a colony of less than 1,000 settlers and only a few hundred of those settlers children? I didn't have a lot of competition."_

_Kaidan watched her a moment, perhaps seeing the way her fingers lingered on the keys. "Do you miss it?"_

_Shepard curled her gauntleted hands away from the piano, the holographic keys winking off._

_ "It doesn't matter. We have a job to do." She looked up. "Let's go."_

_A few days later, after a visit to the Citadel for supplies and to update Udina and Anderson on the hunt for Saren, the requisitions officer delivered a package to Shepard's cabin. She opened it, puzzled as to who would have sent her something and felt her breath catch in her throat as she saw what it was: a haptic piano interface adapter for "any standard computer." _

_She stepped out of her cabin, the hardware adapters in her hand and saw Kaidan at his usual post beside her cabin, trying to fix the glitchy food processor that refused to make coffee at a proper scalding hot temperature. No one else was around._

_"Kaidan—"_

_He looked up and saw what was in her hands. "Oh, looks like some new tech. Want me to install it for you, Commander? I've about had it with this thing." _

_She opened her mouth, intent on returning the gift, on gently letting him know he couldn't give things like this to her. But there was a stubborn set in his shoulders along with a carefully innocent expression. He'd refuse to take credit for the gift, she could see, and she might end up hurting him for no reason if she persisted. She found herself shaking her head instead. "Alright, Lieutenant. Yes, I would like some help."_

_He walked over, taking the pieces from her, his fingers brushing hers. "Happy to help, ma'am."_

_#_

"Andie?"

Shepard woke with a start, her fingers flexing as if she were holding something, handing it over to someone that wasn't here. Elizabeth squeezed her outstretched hand. "We're here."

The shuttle rocked gently as it set down.

"Are we in Vancouver?" Shepard yawned.

"No. You slept through that. We're at the house in Okanagan." Elizabeth stood, gathering her bag and stepping from the shuttle.

Shepard grimaced as she stood, a dozen new aches blossoming all over her. Steve stepped out from the pilot's chair, catching her arm as she stumbled.

"Sorry," she muttered. "Feet swelled a little."

"Sorry, Commander. Should have woken you up when we got to Vancouver so you could walk around, but you looked like you needed the rest…"

She squeezed his arm reassuringly. "Don't worry about it. Let's go outside now."

Shepard expected to find the orchard in ruins, like everything else seemed to be, but this part of Okanagan was rural enough that the Reapers hadn't taken much notice. The nearby town had been burned and looted by frantic survivors, but the outlying farms and fields seemed relatively untouched. When Shepard stepped out onto grass, she almost wept. Haven now had grass in a scrappy little park that the Alliance soldiers had painstakingly uncovered for the benefit of the refugee children, but this… this was a marvel. Undulating waves of green stretched in every direction, only broken the sliver of blue in the distance. The lake. Shepard remembered Elizabeth mentioning it as a favorite place to visit in the summer.

The house was a modest-sized structure with an attached garage for a ground car. Just beyond the house were rows and rows of trees filled with blooms of flowers swaying in a gentle breeze. An outbuilding lay off to the side, housing the harvesting equipment, Elizabeth explained, and above all of that, the Rocky Mountains, their sides furry with green trees.

Steve went before them to the front door of the main house, weapon drawn, and motioned for the women to stand back. Shepard did so, but kept a hand on her sidearm, even as muscles spasmed across her belly in painful waves. She really should have gotten up sooner and walked around. Elizabeth had explained that her husband's parents had passed on just recently before the war started. The house had been closed up until they could go through everything and they'd never gotten the chance. Now they had to be careful. Looters and scavengers might have found a way inside.

Steve keyed his omni-tool with the access code that Elizabeth had given him and the door popped open. He disappeared inside but soon reappeared, holstering his weapon.

"Looks clear, ma'am. A lot of dust, but no one inside."

Elizabeth led the way then, gesturing them all into a large, homey kitchen so they could get something to eat. Rural as it was, Shepard noticed that the kitchen at least had all the modern conveniences: an auto-chef among them.

"Kaidan spent a lot of shore leave making things more comfortable for Gran and Pop," Elizabeth said smiling as she filled Shepard's water glass. "Their health was declining pretty rapidly these past couple of years. Fixing up the house gave him an excuse to spend more time here."

Shepard excused herself to the bathroom a moment later. The shuttle's last stop for a bathroom break had been hours ago. Exiting the washroom, she paused as a glint of something in an open room down the hall caught her eye. The door had been opened by Steve looking for intruders, and now she could see that it seemed to be a spare bedroom. Nothing fancy: a bed, a computer, a chest of drawers. An arm of a ragged blue sweater hung out of the drawers as if it had been hastily thrown in. Shepard felt her stomach clench painfully. It was Kaidan's. She picked up the sweater, poking her finger through one of the holes with a smile. He'd worn this sweater in the hospital when they were both recovering from injuries sustained in the Battle of the Citadel. It had been one of the first times she'd seen him outside of BDUs.

_"You clean up nice."_

_Kaidan smiled crookedly. "Mom told me I'd need a sweater. This is my favorite. Had it since boot camp." His smile faltered and he ran a hand through his hair. "Shepard... uh, maybe this isn't the right time, but I don't know how long we have before the brass and the press descend on us and I wanted to know if... if you would want to have dinner with me? I know an almost secluded table in the hospital cafeteria right next to the fizzy drinks."_

_Shepard blinked and then laughed. "You do know how to seduce a girl." She adjusted the sling on her arm and threaded her good hand's fingers through his. To her surprise, he leaned over and kissed her, fingers teasing the hair she had tucked behind one ear. _

_"I've been wanting to do that for awhile," he said in a low voice that made her knees wobble. "Might be last chance before we're back in uniform."_

_"Well, we'd better take advantage while we can," she said and kissed him again, relishing the warmth of him through the sweater, the taste of him on her tongue._

Shepard sat down on the bed, clutching the sweater, the hollow ache in her chest seeming to yawn wider. After a moment, she rummaged through the drawers again, finding a pair of gray sweatpants folded neatly in the bottom drawer. At least she could have this. Shepard changed out of the hated maternity jumper and pulled on the sweatpants and Kaidan's sweater. For the first time in awhile, she didn't feel like one of those rachni pods ready to pop. Also, the sweater apparently hadn't been washed since the last time he'd worn it. In the closed room, stuffed into a drawer, the sweater still retained a faint hint of his aftershave. Her throat closed up, and she rubbed her belly for reassurance. She would get through this, like everything else. She had to. Even though she felt as useless as a ship drifting through space... Shepard lifted her head as something... an idea sparked into existence in her mind. In that hollow space something stirred. Not hope—not yet—but purpose.

#

"I'm going to find Kaidan," she announced, coming back out to the kitchen. Elizabeth looked up, blinking in surprise at Shepard's new attire. Steve had a glass of water poised comically at his lips, mid-sip.

"What?"

"After the baby's born, I'm going to head a rescue operation," she said with firm conviction."The _Normandy_ can't be far. Maybe it just ran out of fuel so they're drifting. There's no reason to suppose that anything... horrible happened. They just need help and I'm going to do it."

"Count me in," Steve said, setting down his glass and grinning. "Nice to have you back, Commander."

"But what about the baby—David?" Elizabeth said, worry furrowing her brow. "You can't just leave a newborn behind... a trip like that could take weeks."

Shepard nodded. "I'll take him with me."

The kitchen fell quiet. Shepard could see that Elizabeth wanted to argue, could almost see it come to her face, but instead the older woman took a deep breath and nodded. "Then I'm coming too. You'll need my help... and I want to find Kaidan as much as you do."

They spent the rest of the day searching the house for the fabled trove of baby things. Shepard had to force herself to rest. The physical activity had triggered more of the contractions and nothing seemed to ease the discomfort.

At last, they did find a box in the basement labeled "baby" containing a goodly horde of blankets, tiny clothes, socks, and even a few toys. Best of all, however, were a large stack of cloth diapers  
>Steve hauled the box out of the basement, and Elizabeth ran a load of laundry. They decided to stay there for the night and head back to London in the morning.<p>

#

Shepard awoke in the middle of the night to an odd _popping _feeling. Then she felt urgency pressing against her bladder and a sharp pain in her lower back. Stumbling through the dark, unfamiliar room, cursing once as she stubbed her toe against something unseen, she made it to the bathroom. Through the grogginess of sleep she didn't realize what was wrong until she flipped on the light. The sweatpants had been soaked through all the way to her socks. Another sharp pain rolled like a wave over her stomach and sudden pressure increased in her lower abdomen.

"Oh." Shepard breathed in and out, leaning against the sink. Elizabeth and Dr. Zhang had been coaching her on the signs... this was it. Her baby was coming whether she was in London or not. Feeling strangely calm for the first time in weeks, Shepard finished her business in the bathroom and took a quick shower to clean up. After changing into fresh clothes, she timed the contractions with her omni-tool. Still about fifteen minutes apart. She had time before she would need to wake Elizabeth.

Needing to be occupied, she went back out into the kitchen and flipped on the auto-chef for coffee. She wouldn't have any, but Elizabeth and Steve would probably need it. She was pacing through the kitchen, hissing out a few breaths through another contraction when a yawning, rumpled Steve wandered into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.

"Commander? What are you doing up at this hour?"

"The baby..." Shepard bit her lip as the contraction ended and exhaled. "David's making an early appearance." She rubbed her belly. The skin had gone soft again.

Steve's eyes widened, all signs of sleep fading from his face. "Do you... do I need to boil water or something?"

She laughed. "No, but... since you're up, if you could fly into that town we passed yesterday and see if there are any doctors around?"

Steve hurried out of the house, shrugging into his uniform as he ran, half spilling the mug of coffee she pressed into hands.

"Don't kill yourself, Steve!" she called after him as he started preflight for the shuttle.

"Are you kidding?" he yelled back to be heard over the noise of the engine. "Major Alenko will kill me if anything happens to you. I'll be right back!"

Shepard kept up the pacing, then retrieved her sidearm from the bedroom and cleaned it, the familiar motions soothing. She also sent out a quick email via her omni-tool to her friends still in the system—Wrex, Tali, Hackett—letting them know what was happening and that she wouldn't be returning to London as scheduled.

The contractions started getting closer together. Shepard waited until the last one passed and went to wake Elizabeth.

The next few hours were a blur of painful contractions getting ever-closer until they almost seemed constant. Shepard was no stranger to pain; she'd been charged by enemy krogan, pistol whipped by mercenaries, biotically flung through a wall, and had more bullets pass through her body than she wanted to remember. But it all seemed to dim in comparison with the feeling of trying to pass a freighter through what Tali would have called an "emergency induction port."

The doctor showed up finally, sleep tousled but alert, and took at look at the business end of the birthing bed. Steve hovered in the background, looking pale and fretful until Elizabeth told him to get the blankets from the laundry. They were going to need them.

"You're fully dilated, ma'am," the doctor said, pulling on gloves from his medical kit, "On the next contraction, I want you to push."

The universe seemed to shrink in those horrible, pain-filled moments. A Reaper could have come out of the darkest reaches of the galaxy and she wouldn't have noticed, wouldn't have cared. Nothing mattered except for the doctor's voice urging her on with words she couldn't quite understand but felt the meaning of. Steve was there too, holding her hand, letting her squeeze his arm so tightly she left bruises. She had enough presence of mind to realize that he shouldn't be there, that he was standing in someone's place, but the pain came again, bringing its startling focus on only the now and not what should be.

And then hours later she could feel an end: the baby sliding out of her with an almighty push, and she fell limp against the pillows propped up behind her. Something in the room was screaming. She looked around blearily. Instead she was surprised as the doctor deposited a wet, squirming, limbs akimbo baby into her arms and it was _this_ thing making all the noise. A pair of gummy dark eyes stared at her from beneath a heavy fringe of slicked down black hair.

"Hi," Shepard said softly, touching a downy red cheek. It was David and he was here and he was safe. Beside her, Steve was wiping his eyes. Kaidan's absence lurking in the back of her mind wanted to come forward, to reopen that hollow ache, but she pushed it back. David. He needed her and she needed him. Let the world come crashing back tomorrow, for now, everything was good.

#

Kaidan.

Shepard opened her eyes and found a pair of caramel brown ones looking back at her. A Kaidan dream. They were in the Normandy, in their bed. She could feel the subtle hum of the engine and the room was dim as it usually was. Smiling, she reached out and touched his cheek. "Hi."

He kissed her palm, sending a tingly sort of pleasure all the way through her. Shepard raised an eyebrow. Was this to be an especially good dream then?

"I'm sorry I didn't get here in time. But you were supposed to wait on me," he chided with a smile.

Shepard glanced over at the bassinet beside the bed. David had been in her dreams too lately. "Sorry. Your son doesn't listen to orders very well."

Kaidan chuckled. She could feel the sound under the fingertips she'd rested against his chest. "I may have made it if you hadn't come halfway across the world. No sooner than we land then Hackett's running around telling everyone you're giving birth. I've never seen him so animated—must have been as nervous as I was."

Shepard frowned. This... this was a little too close to home for a dream. Her Kaidan dreams had been good ones; memories, or, on the really good nights, fantasies. Time to take control of this dream. She reached out, kissing him with a ferocity that surprised the both of them.

"Shepard," Kaidan murmured against her mouth, when they parted for air, "it's not that I don't want... _this_—you... but is it really a good idea? I mean, you did just have a baby." As if in response to his words, a mewling cry began from the bassinet.

No, no. This wasn't right. This was a dream. Her dream Davids never cried. She didn't even know what dream-David looked like. Slowly, she turned around, sitting up and looked into the bassinet. A tiny pink baby with a tuft of black hair standing on end squirmed in his blankets, face screwed up with frustration.  
>Shepard turned back to the man in her bed and began to realize details that had escaped her before: the line of a window, the unfamiliar dark shapes in the room, the absence of the soft blue glow of the aquarium, the new worry lines that had appeared at the corner of Kaidan's eyes. What she'd taken for the hum of the engine sounded instead more like a washing machine running in a distant room.<p>

"Kaidan?" Shepard whispered, touching his face with trembling fingers, tracing his eyebrows, touching his stubbly cheek. "You're real? You're not a dream?"

His gaze searched hers, and he kissed her again, slowly this time, tasting her.

"Yeah. I'm real; I promise."

She breathed him in, concentrating on the feel of his hand wrapped around hers, the pressure of his forehead leaning against hers, the sound of him breathing.

"I was going to rescue you," she said into the stillness.

Kaidan huffed out a laugh. "You've saved my bacon more times than I can count. Least I can do is not need rescuing once in awhile."

Shepard pulled back slightly. "Does your mother know you're here?"

"Not yet. I got here late, when you were all asleep. Steve's the only one who saw me. Pointed a gun at my head when I stepped into the house; had to biotically shove him away before he would believe it was me."

"Have you held the baby?"

Kaidan shook his head. "I took a peek, but he was sleeping and I was bone tired, so I crawled in here and you know the rest."

Shepard turned around and lifted David out of the bassinet, trailing blankets. His little legs curled up, shivering, as she passed him to Kaidan. His face had an expression of wonder as he cradled the infant close to his chest, his fingers counting ten fingers and ten toes before wrapping the blanket around the baby more securely.

Shepard leaned on his arm as Kaidan gazed at the baby.

"I know I should probably say something profound about now," he said, voice more husky than usual. "But all I can really think of is… wow."

"He looks like you," Shepard commented, fingering the fluffy black hair atop the infant's head.

"Have you thought of any names?"

Shepard nodded, eyes still on the baby. "I thought… David."

Kaidan looked at her. "After Anderson?"

She nodded. Kaidan smiled as David yawned and flailed a tiny fist.

"Yeah, it suits him. David…" he said, trying it out, then looked at her again. "What about a middle name?"

Shepard shook her head. "I couldn't think of one off the top of my head, but the doctor did want a last name for the birth certificate—"

"A birth certificate? They still care about something like that with the state of things?"

Shepard shrugged. "It was via an application on his omni-tool. Probably just habit." She hesitated. "Kaidan, I hope you don't mind but for the surname? I gave him Alenko."

He looked up at her, eyebrow raised. Shepard shook her head. "I'm not burdening our child with my name. Half of your mother's job in London was keeping the paparazzi off of me."

He laughed. "Guess we have a lot to catch up on."

Shepard scooted closer, resting her head against his shoulder, finger playing with the thick tuft of hair on David's small head. "Yeah, we do."

-end-

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thank you so much for all the reviews and favorites. I really appreciate every one of them.  
><strong>

**Side note, I referenced early on a mention of Anderson telling Shepard she'd be a good mother. This actually happens in cut dialogue from the game. If you haven't already, YouTube the conversation on the Citadel before he dies and you can listen yourself. Bring tissues!**


	4. Bonus content!

**Bonus content!**

**I was thinking about the end of my fic and had always thought that Kaidan was followed to Okanagan shortly by the rest of the Normandy crew, but there wasn't a good way to mention that without breaking up the flow of the ending. So here are some short, drabbly type fics about the crew meeting little David. :D  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Kaidan and Shepard didn't have long to accustom themselves to being parents before the crew descended on the orchard house in Okanagan. Kaidan, of course, had told everyone what was going on when he left London and after a few days' rest, they all followed him.<p>

Garrus was one of the first to hold little David – or at least attempted to hold him. David yawned, shifting his weight, and Garrus promptly handed him back to Kaidan with a nervous chuckle.

"So, Shepard," he said, mandibles flexing, "when does he become mobile? Seems like it would be a hassle to carry him around everywhere."

Shepard blinked. "Um. I don't know actually. They have to crawl before walking… so, I don't know, a few months?"

"Oh… Well, where are you going to put your shotgun?"

"I'm thinking of getting a special harness so I can have both hands free."

"Sounds good."

#

"This is your hatchling?" Wrex tilted his head, putting little David under the gaze of one red eye. "Looks squishy. Where're his teeth?"

"Babies don't get teeth for awhile, Wrex."

"How do they eat then? Krogan are born ready to eat meat within the hour. We eat the shells of our own eggs first. Do you have to chew stuff up and regurgitate it for them? Turians do that," Wrex chuckled.

Kaidan struggled to hide the expression on his face. "Uh, no. Human babies… breastfeed."

Wrex cocked his head. "They eat… breasts?"

"No! They drink milk. Human females have… uh—"

"Mammary glands," Shepard supplied with a dry look.

"I was going to say 'funny bumps'," Kaidan said out of the side of his mouth and dodged Shepard's elbow into his ribs.

#

Kaidan watched as James cradled David with surprisingly expert hands, making funny faces for the baby and reaching out with one large finger so that little David could grab onto it.

Shepard walked up then, her hand finding the small of Kaidan's back.

"So, Lola," James said with a grin, still looking down at David. "Guess I won't be able to be distracted by you any more now that you're a mama…" He looked up at her and his voice trailed off as his eyes went down. "On second thought, being pregnant's been good to you. Maybe I oughta start calling you _chichis."_

Kaidan looked over at Shepard, a deceptively calm look on his face. "Shepard, what was the reason you didn't like me bash James's face in on the _Normandy_?"

"Because we were focusing on the mission."

"And now that the mission's over?"

Shepard considered.

James started to look alarmed. "Oy, hey now, Lola—"

"He's all yours Kaidan."

#

"Commander, you have some sort of parasite attached to your arm."

"That's my baby, Javik."

#

EDI peered at the baby in Shepard's arms with obvious fascination. "David's odds of survival were astoundingly low considering the events your body went through during the Reaper War. A remarkable statistical anomaly."

"Um, thanks, EDI…"

#

"I've scrubbed my suit—"

"Tali…"

"I also sprayed it down with anti-bacterial cleanser—"

"Tali…"

"And then I went through the decon cycle once more just to make sure."

"Tali!" Shepard put her free hand on Tali's shoulder. "It's okay. You're the cleanest thing in the galaxy right now. Here, hold out your arms."

Tali stopped wringing her hands and held them out. Shepard gently transferred baby David to her. "Oh…" she said in a soft voice. "He's… he's..."

"Yes?"

Tali smoothed a finger over the top of David's head, the hair springing back into place. "Perfect."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: "Funny bumps," if you didn't know, comes from some cut dialogue in ME2 when you talk to the turian gardener in the Dark Star lounge, he asks femShep if she's female because she has those "funny bumps" like asari. You can find it on YouTube.**


	5. Bonus content 2!

**A/N: More bonus content inspired by a wish for Shenko "fluff" on a friend's LJ.**

* * *

><p>A few weeks after David was born, when Shepard felt well enough, Kaidan took her on a tour of the orchard. David was fed and napping and left in the care of Kaidan's mother, who had also packed them a picnic basket. Shepard carried a blanket.<p>

"The automatic trimmers should have kept running even through the war because they're solar powered," Kaidan said as they walked from the house. "So the grass should be short , but we should still be on the lookout for ticks."

"We can look each other over," Shepard said off-hand, breathing in the fresh, crisp air, fragrant with the scent of blooming apple trees in the distance.

Kaidan gave her a sidelong look and that smile of his, the one that started at the corner of his mouth and reached up to his eyes.

"Oh I'm planning on doing more than 'looking'."

Shepard blinked, understood what he meant, and felt a moment of nervousness not unlike the feeling she'd had when she'd first asked him to stay in her cabin before Ilos.

_Don't be silly,_ she told herself, reaching out to thread her fingers through his. _You've been dreaming about this for nine months and you're going to go all shy now?_

But she was different now; she was... flabby in places she'd never been flabby in before –the consequence of having her skin stretched out to accommodate a growing life. She'd tried to resume some of her normal workout routine to combat said flab, but she was stiff and sore and the doctor had advised that she take it easy until everything had healed. Though after some pointed questions, he said that not _all_ activities were prohibited though provided a couple of weeks had passed.

She shut her nervousness from her mind and concentrated instead on the still marvelous feeling of his hand in hers, the sound of his voice talking about his favorite spot, the yield of the orchard and vineyard, and some of his childhood memories from this place.

They spread the blanket under the shade of blossoming trees, their scent enveloping them. Kaidan leaned back on his hands, closing his eyes briefly as a gentle breeze fluttered their blanket and set some leaves flying down to land on the basket. Shepard watched him and felt her heart ache. Not a bittersweet ache or a lonely ache, but a feeling of _fullness_, of an emotion so intense it literally made her whole chest hurt.

"What?" He asked, catching her stare.

She leaned forward impulsively and kissed him. "I'm just glad you're back."

He returned the kiss, his mouth warm against hers, eager but not demanding. She opened to him, feeling the last few hard pieces of the shield she'd built around her heart over the time he'd been gone crumble. He was here, he was hers and she was his, and the Reapers would never part them again.

She felt him back away a bit and opened her eyes. He was gazing at her, his thumb caressing her cheek.

"Marry me," she said, the words leaving her mouth almost on their own, but once they were said she knew them to be true—this was something she wanted. If she was honest with herself, she'd been wanting to say those words for three years.

His eyes widened, and he started to laugh.

Shepard blinked. "What's so funny?"

He leaned over, reaching into his pocket, and brought out a simple silver band.

"I was going to ask you the very same question." He cupped her face again, the smile fading. "At your side is the only place I ever want to be for the rest of my life."

Shepard couldn't stop the tremor that ran though her hand when he slipped the ring on her finger, but when he kissed her again, deeply, and leaned forward so that she was on her back, her nervousness vanished, and she knew that she didn't have to be afraid any more.


	6. Bonus content 3

**Bonus content! Part 3  
><strong>

**A/N: I really didn't intend to write so much fluffy bonus content, but a drabble like this doesn't really belong in my catch-all "Shore Leave." Will there be more? Your guess is as good as mine.**

* * *

><p>Shepard lay in bed, eyes open. Weeks had passed in a sort of rural paradise at the orchard house. During the war, she had sometimes allowed herself to dream of "after" of simply resting and not fighting. Now that it was a reality, she enjoyed it more than she thought she would. But there was also time for more thinking than she'd had in years. Thinking about what she'd thought her life would be….<p>

The silhouette of the bassinet was outlined by a faint line of moonlight shining through the window. Kaidan had just settled beside her, his breathing starting to become even.

"Kaidan."

"Hmm?" he murmured sleepily.

"Is this what you wanted?"

"What?" His voice was thick with sleep and she turned over to face him as he blinked and rubbed his eyes.

"This life. Us. The baby." She licked her lips. "I mean, we never really talked about kids—David was a surprise to both of us and as soon as we head back to London, the press will have a field day—the first two human Spectres—us being who we are... in an open, acknowledged relationship—"

"Married, you mean," he interrupted, now awake, as he grasped her left hand and kissed the ring on her finger. His matching silver band glinted in the dim light.

Shepard continued, refusing to be distracted. "And with a baby... I don't think the Alliance will court martial us because of the rebuilding and all, but there's going to be consequences." She took a deep breath. "I just want to know that this is what you want."

He stared at her for a moment then reached out, sliding his fingers through her hair. "Actually... no.

Shepard was so surprised she just stared at him, open-mouthed.

"I had pictured something different than a baby," he admitted, his voice low and serious. "More than one, actually. Two or three little Shepards running around the orchard, climbing trees, stealing fruit, getting sticky fingers everywhere—"

"Two or three?" Shepard said faintly, finding her voice.

"Or four or five," he continued, his fingers tracing idle patterns down her arm. "Not to mention the litter of varren pups that will be at their heels—"

"Kaidan Alenko!"

"Hush," he said smiling, leaning over to kiss her on the mouth, "you'll wake the baby. Besides," he continued, tugging her close, nuzzling her until her grumbling had faded into little sounds of pleasure, "who said anything about moving to London? I sent an e-mail to Hackett yesterday. He wants us to head the recovery efforts in Vancouver and here in Okanagan is a nice place to commute from. Lots of fresh air for little David," he murmured, his mouth finding that sensitive spot on her collarbone, "and however many of his brothers and sisters."


End file.
